The Ninja Nutri Bowl is a wonderful companion piece to the Ninja BlendMax Duo (Model: BL2013) despite some similarities between the two units. The Nutri Bowl allows for a wider range of uses including settings for dough based recipes, cookies, or chopping vegetables for soups or dips. However, both can be used simultaneously to make smoothes and extract nutrients from fruits and vegetables. Physically, the Nutri Bowl is a little bit smaller and more compact that the BlendMax, though it definitely does not lack in power. At 1200 Watts, the Nutri Bowl speeds through any task you throw at it ! Cooking with speed is definitely an understatement ! Inside the box you will note several different accessories including a 32 and 24 oz ninja cup as well as the bigger Nutri Bowl. These were a personal favorite of ours since they are easy to handle and can be used on the go. Complementing these, you will find a plastic dough blade as well as a quad blade. You will also receive a book of 75 recipes that cover wide variety of foods. It covers all the modes of the Nutri Bowl.
On the front of the unit, much like the bigger BlendMax Duo, you will note several modes that are listed in connection with the AutoIQ setting. The AutoIQ setting determines how long each will run; with the setting turned on, each setting will run longer for a more creamy, thinner texture. When the setting is set to no, the results tend to be thicker. There is also a pulse setting that you can manually control. In addition, several of the modes are only available depending on which cup you use. There are small LED lights in the corner of each button to show you which modes are available. As such when you use the 24 or 32 oz cups, only smoothie and extract are allowed. When you use the Nutri Bowl, the Fusion Mix, chop and dough settings are allowed. Their respective times are listed below:
Smoothie (Boost Yes): 60 Seconds
Smoothie (Boost No): 40 Seconds
Extract (Boost Yes): 70 Seconds
Extract (Boost No): 45 Seconds
Fusion Mix (Boost Yes): 56 Seconds
Fusion Mix (Boost No): 20 Seconds
Fusion Chop (Boost Yes): 5 Seconds
Fusion Chop(Boost No): 3 Seconds
Fusion Dough (Boost Yes): 30 Seconds
Fusion Dough (Boost No): 15 Seconds
For a test with our Nutri Bowl, we made a few milkshakes using the pulse setting. Comparing this with the BlendMax Duo, both of the results were fairly equal in consistency. Perhaps one edge the BlendMax Duo has is that it has 3 manual speed selections (Low, Medium, High) over the Nutri Bowl's only pulse setting. However, this is an hardly an issue as both produced the same results even though the Nutri Bowl is listed at 1200 watts versus the 1600 watts of the BlendMax! Quite amazing ! Another test we did was we decided to make the Lemon Pound Cake found in the included recipe book. This was an amazing first time recipe and I recommend it to everyone. After baking two loafs, we found that once we juiced half of the lemon, it was slightly more than 1/8th of a cup, though depending on the size of the lemon, this will naturally vary so keep that in mind. In addition, for the lemon zest we found that the best amount is about 1 teaspoon. This will prevent you from overdoing it since a little zest goes along way, though you may tweak it to your needs. The Nutri Bowl was able to whip the ingredients really well and was extremely fast. Connectively, once it was done, it was a bit difficult to get all of the mixture off the dough blade but this was just a minor inconvenience. The Lemon Pound cake turned out amazing after about 50 minutes or so. The crack on top gave it a nice homemade appearance!
In conclusion, the Nutri Bowl is an amazing companion piece to the BlendMax Duo. With both, you will be able to tackle even the most difficult cooking tasks with ease. However, both are definitely not required. The Nutri Bowl still fulfills most of the tasks needed to create wonderful smoothies and other treats. Washing and storing has been relatively pain free and all the blades and lids are dishwasher safe (top rack only). In the end, I would strongly recommend giving this a shot, especially if you already have the BlendMax Duo or in need of a quality blender for your household.